Hardened Suspects and Innocent Cab Drivers

Administration Strategy for Detention Now in Disarray

By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 13, 2008; A01

In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush and his advisers sought to create an unprecedented parallel system to detain suspected terrorists far from the normal scrutiny of the U.S. judiciary. The naval base at Guantanamo Bay offered a way to indefinitely hold those individuals the administration considered among the most dangerous in the world.

But the Supreme Court's decision yesterday to grant habeas corpus rights to the detainees struck at the very core of the administration's approach, as a narrow majority ruled that even hardened suspects are due the basic right to challenge their custody in federal court.

The ruling throws into disarray the administration's detention strategy, almost certainly leaving to Bush's successor and the next Congress the dilemma of what to do with the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

. . . The naval base at Guanta…